Is Pinterest just for Etsy Sellers?
The other day, I was talking to a few small business owners about how I use Pinterest for my small business clients.
They all looked excited to join in the pinning fun until one of them said, “I use Pinterest all the time to find new recipes but I’ve never thought about using it for my business. I don’t have an Etsy store online and sell crafty things. I’m a weight loss coach, how is this site going to help me grow my business?”
I immediately responded back, “I don’t have an Esty shop either. And I’m a coach too, a small business productivity coach … and I get more traffic from Pinterest than Facebook, Instagram and organic Google search combined.”
And then I added, “I used to think that Pinterest was for mommy bloggers and people who like to make creative stuff but I can personally tell you that most of the people who sign up for my email list and register for my Pinterest Traffic Builder group program come from Pinterest.
It’s not just because I can see the traffic numbers in my Google Analytics, they’re telling me that they found me on Pinterest!”
Seriously, how does this work?
I’m not here to sell you on why you should be on Pinterest.
If you’ve been following the growth of this visual-based social platform, you already know about the 322 million users who actively log into Pinterest and spend about 90 minutes a day on the site.
And enough reports have come out to show us that Pinterest works really well for businesses who sell products geared towards Pinterest’s female dominated target. Just spend a few minutes running a search on Pinterest success stories and you’ll read first hand how this site can help small businesses.
Pinterest is more than just ‘one-more-social-site’ that you need to figure out. This program uses its visual images to show users something they can look at, something they can see in action and imagine themselves using.
A study from econsultancy.com found that 69% of Pinterest users have purchased an item or found something that they want to purchase while scrolling through Pinterest. And with the Buyable Pins feature that Pinterest has on their site, there are even more ways for potential customers to connect with you to learn more about your services.
By now, we all get the appeal of Pinterest and how it works.
We’ve read the posts about how bloggers have seen their site traffic double, sometimes triple from a single pin. We’ve seen the Google analytic screenshots of an online coach who promoted her email opt-in and later sold out the spaces in her coaching program.
If we’re no longer questioning Pinterest’s strong force in the online world then the next question to ask is: How did these Pinterest success stories find a way to take their collection of boards to grow their business and add to their bottom line?
How do you connect with these actively engaged users if you don’t have a tangible product and sell a service like coaching sessions or an online course?
You learn the steps to grow Pinterest into a place to connect and share your company’s story.
These success stories turned their boards into the characters of their company’s narrative. Their boards became individual destinations giving Pinterest users an image-filled story about the person behind the business.
And these online insights gave these pinners { and potential clients } not just a a reason to follow them but to actually encourage them to download free stuff, register for programs and pay for their services.
How to Share Your Story on Pinterest
The best place to start sharing your story on Pinterest is through your boards. Take a look at these Pinterest board ideas and see how you can create boards that will connect you to new customers on Pinterest.
1. Before and After
Everyone loves a good “before it looked like this and look at us now” story. Take some pictures and show us your client’s success stories.
Do you have a program that not only helps your clients lose weight but changes they way they look at life? Tell us their story with a blog post and pin an image of your client doing something she hasn’t done in years. Show us the before shots and then give us the big reveal of how working with you can change our lives.
Run a search for keywords in Pinterest to make sure that your boards get found by the millions of users. And then think about the CONTENT of the pins that you’ll add to these boards. Instead of just the usual Before and After images, try one of these ideas to create your pins:
- Make a Change
- Life Success Stories
- Making an Impact
2. Introduce Us to Your World
People like to do business with people that they know and trust. What better way for people to get to know and trust you than to set up a few boards of the things you love to do.
Use the board description area to introduce yourself, why you started your business and a few things that you like to do in your time away from your laptop.
Show off your personality by posting things that mean something to you with content pins that share ideas like these:
- My Corner of the World
- What I Love
- A Few of My Favorite Things
3. Your Service in Action
Think about how your business helps your customers. How does your programs make life easier? What problems do you solve?
Now take those answers and create Pinterest boards pinning your solutions. Don’t take this too literal with your answers and have some fun with this with boards like these:
Favorite Movie Scenes – What movies used your type of work as part of one of the scenes? Post up a scene from that movie and describe how your services was used in the pin description.
Your Dream Home/Car/Trip/Whatever – While you’re pinning your dream stuff, add in a few pins to show how your programs can give someone that dream home or trip.
We Go Together – Think about famous pairings and add in pins of complimentary products that work well with what you do.
4. How I Got Here
Pinterest users love their history so much that Pinterest has a History category where you can search for historical pins. How far back can you trace your company’s history? How long have people been doing the same type of work that you offer?
Take us on a historical tour by adding this type of content for your pins onto your boards:
- Through the Years
- Vintage {your service} – Post images of people doing your type of work; Go online and run a google search for sites showcasing vintage images and post them directly from the sites you find. Pinterest users love new images!
- Words of Wisdom – Is there a father { or mother } who was the first person to start doing your type of work? See if you can find images with quotes from that person and add in other quotes that define the programs you offer.
5. Help Me Find This
As more people start to use Pinterest to find things, Pinterest is starting to give Google a run for their money as a search engine. And due to the key-word rich board descriptions, Pinterest boards are showing up in an organic Google search.
Think about the questions your customers ask all the time. What’s the one thing they always ask you and you always seem to know the answer?
What do you know about that you can teach us by sharing content-rich pins that help them find what they’re looking for on Pinterest:
- Now You Know About {service or the answer}
- Learn from the Pros
- All Things Your {programs like weight loss, mindset shifting or business coaching}
Need more help with your Pinterest Process?
If you need more help with your Pinterest Process, I’ve pulled together a 25-page Pinterest Process Workbook to give you simple easy to follow action steps to give you clarity with your Pinterest strategy.
What you’ll learn:
- Understand how Pinterest decides which pins show up in the feed
- How to get more people to repin your blog posts, products and services
- Step-by-step process to create a personalized Pinterest strategy
- Monitor what’s working and what needs tweaking
You’ll also get a tracking guide that you can customize to monitor your Pinterest marketing plans so you can see which boards you should be pinning to and where to focus your time on Pinterest. Plus, you’ll get printable tracking worksheets to use every month to track your progress … all of this cool stuff for just $34 bucks!
Click here to get your instant download of The Pinterest Process Workbook.
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